these are not fall colors
Another day of school, another bus ride home. Mabel doesn't mind the routine, but it does suffer in contrast to the wild and varied days of Gravity Falls. When the bus arrives at the stop, she is looking contemplatively out the window. She sees a California winter, but in the mirrored layers of reflections she envisions a different climate from a different bus ride. She sees the sharp hills and valleys, and the endless evergreens.
As she steps off the bus with Dipper right behind her, she takes a deep breath of the cool air. It's as bracing as his advice. His words from the previous day are still lodged somewhere just below her heart, slowly being absorbed, filling it like helium. She is lifting, rising over what had seemed before to be insurmountable. The sidewalk scrolls beneath her feet; the sky is a crisp, empty blue; she's got her brother at her side and a weekend to look forward to. Life is good.
And then, suddenly, life is awesome.
When they approach their house, there's a pickup truck parked in the driveway. It looks sort of new—not new new; like, used-car-dealer-and-in-pretty-good-shape new. Mabel looks to Dipper but he only shrugs, as curious as she is.
"Maybe Mom and Dad bought us a car!" she suggests.
"Might be a little soon for that," Dipper says dryly.
Mabel puts her hands on her hips and grins. "They must have heard how great we were at Globnar racing."
"No, if they'd heard about that we'd still be grounded."
The mystery is solved when a large, familiar figure lumbers around the front of the cab. He's wearing a brown beanie and a thermal sweatshirt with a t-shirt over it—a green t-shirt marked with a big, sloppy question mark.
Mabel's backpack hits the sidewalk with a thump.
"SOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSS!" she screeches, rushing across the lawn towards him like a deranged linebacker.
Soos' face lights up at the sight of her. "Mabel!" he yells back, opening his arms.
Mabel barrels straight into him without slowing, leaping upwards to catch his neck in a hug. He staggers backwards a bit, knocking into the door of the truck. She is beside herself, hugging him and tugging at his hat, kicking her feet in the air.
"You came to see us!" she exclaims, shaking him excitedly.
"Of course! I missed you guys. Dipper, dude—bring it in!"
Dipper isn't far behind Mabel. He and Soos exchange a high five and then a one-armed hug. Soos' other arm is still supporting Mabel, who has climbed him like a tree and is basically assaulting him with her unfettered affection.
"Did you know I needed cheering up? Do we have telepathy?! What number am I thinking of?" Mabel covers Soos' eyes with her hands.
Soos tilts his head back, trying to see beneath her fingers. "Uh, six. No, seventy-four! What was the question again?"
"Nice new truck, man," Dipper says, admiring the relatively shiny vehicle.
"Yeah, that's my new work truck. Pretty sweet, huh? Check this out!" Soos somehow manages to juggle Mabel and open the passenger door at the same time. Running lights appear at the edge of the step to get in, as well as at the top of the door frame. "It's like an alien blast door or something! Total sci-fi. I was like, the future is now, you know?"
Mabel slides down and beams up at him. "And you drove it all this way to see us, you big softy!"
Soos shrugs bashfully. "Well, Melody is in Portland for the weekend taking care of some boring stuff, and the Shack is always pretty dead this time of year. I closed up because I was alone and went to get gas, and the station is sort of on the south side of town, and I was like, hey, Mabel and Dipper are to the south."
Dipper frowned. "You were alone? What about Abuelita?"
"She moved out of the Shack after Melody moved in with me. She didn't like all the customers making noise all day, anyway," Soos said. "Me and Melody are in my old break room, the one with the carpet that turned me into a pig. That was a very enriching day. Oh, and dudes; I cleaned up the attic some for when you come back. I left it pretty much how it was, though." He pauses, sudden worry in his eyes. "You guys are coming back, right? For sure?"
Mabel has honestly never even considered the possibility she won't be going back to Gravity Falls in the summer. As far as she's concerned, that's not an option.
"Even if we have to walk," Dipper says.
Soos relaxes. "Walk? I got your ride right here, dawg!" He thumps his fist against the side of his new truck for emphasis.
"We could fill the back with water," Mabel says. "Pool party all the way to Oregon!"
"A pool with wheels? Aw, man, I bet nobody has ever thought of that before, ever. We should, like, copyright or trademark that. Hey, do either of you dudes know the difference between a copyright and a trademark? I think that might be important."
"How is the Shack doing? I know you said it's dead around Christmas, but other than that…?" Dipper asks.
"It's going great!" Soos proudly proclaims. "It's like a big town landmark now, so everybody sends the tourists our way. Plus, Melody is, like, a total genius at business. All the numbers make sense when she explains it, you know? And I keep making attractions just like I did for Mr. Pines. When you guys come back you should check out the Komodo Wagon I made. It's a dragon on wheels, so it's even deadlier! Kind of like your pool with wheels, Mabel. I guess great minds think alike!"
"Synergy!" Mabel says, another cool word she learned from her boss days.
"Wendy's in school right now, but I already told her she can have her job back over the break. And she picks up hours on the weekends sometimes." Soos digs around in a pocket and extracts a very rumpled and soda-stained wad of paper. "Speaking of hours, I've been putting together this business report for Mr. Pines and I thought you dudes could pitch some new attractions. You know, to spice it up a little."
"Flea circus! No, fairy circus! Fairies riding circus elephants and the elephants can dance!" Mabel proposes.
Dipper puts on his thinking face. "Wait, for Grunkle Stan or Ford? Because I guess technically Ford still owns the Shack, but Stan ran the business and paid the mortgage, and Stan promoted you to manager, but Ford still owns the Shack… Where do your profits even go?"
"Uh, Melody could answer that better than me, but there's a bank account it all goes to and I get paid out of that and so does Melody and sometimes Wendy."
"What name is it under?"
Soos paws through another pocket and pulls out a crinkled check stub. "…Stan Pines," he reads.
"Well, that tells us nothing."
"Who cares?" Mabel says, impulsively hugging Soos again and making him fumble his check stub. "They're working together!"
"Heh, well as far as I'm concerned, I still answer to Stan," Soos says with a shrug and a grin.
"It is Stan's business," Dipper muses. "I don't think Great-Uncle Ford would want to get into running a tourist trap. Or shut it down, since they've reconciled and everything."
"Grunkle Ford will do all his dangerous nerd stuff in his mad science lab and Grunkle Stan will fleece the rubes upstairs!" Mabel says, as it's perfectly obvious to her that's the one and only possibility.
There's a gleam of excitement in Dipper's eye when he considers that. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe that's how it'll be."
"And Soos will be there too. Boop!" Mabel says, poking Soos' stomach playfully.
"Ha ha! One more time," he says.
"Boop! Beep bap! Beepity-beepity-bop—"
Soos chortles breathlessly and bends over slightly, protecting his bulk with his arms. "Ha ha, okay, no more. I'm gonna pee a little."
"I guess it'll be a full house," Dipper says.
"Actually, Melody is already talking about getting a place of our own," Soos says, rising back up and wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. "She likes the Shack, but I don't think she likes living there as much. I don't get it, but whatever makes her happy!"
Mabel loves the Shack, but even she knows its 'rustic charm' isn't for everyone. "So what are we doing while you're here?" she asks Soos. "Sightseeing? Mall shopping? Hang gliding?!"
"I'm down for whatever, girl-dude, we can go mall gliding. But first, I brought you guys something." Soos walks around to the back of his truck and bends over into the truck bed. "I heard you were, like, totally deprived down here, so I thought I'd hook you up."
He lifts an entire case of Pitt Cola.
"Soos, you are a king among men," Dipper says seriously.
"That will go great with some plastic dinosaurs!" Mabel says, her mouth already watering at the thought of recreating the Gravity Falls edition of Mabel Juice.
"Three more where this came from, dudes," Soos says, patting the case. "Oh, and Dipper, Stan had me go down to the basement and look for something. I don't know if I got them all, but this is what I found." He goes to the cab and reaches under the passenger seat, pulling out a shoe box. "Sorry if it smells like shoes. This was the first box I could find that wasn't full of cereal."
Dipper takes it from him with a puzzled expression. When he opens it and looks inside, he lights up. "What… Where did you…?"
"What is it? Dipper, what is it?" Mabel presses him, overwhelmingly curious.
"It's pages! Pages from Journal 3, photocopies! I didn't think I'd ever…" Dipper's expression contorts into a very odd combination of emotions.
Soos looks worried. "Aw, man, I didn't mean to break him."
Mabel tugs the box out of Dipper's limp grasp. Inside, she sees black and white pages of paper bearing the imperfections, misaligned borders, and smudges that are the telltale signs of a photocopy. She recognizes some of the content: Sure enough, they are pages from Journal 3.
"Where did you get these?" she asks, letting Dipper take the box back.
"Down in Ford's lab where the portal used to be," he replies. "They were all in that desk with the spot that burns you even if you lick your finger first."
"It's here. It's all here," Dipper says in a tone approaching reverence. "Or at least most of it, I don't know for sure… These must have been made before Weirdmageddon, I don't see any of the pages that were restored. And all the invisible notes are gone, but still, I can… I can start with these!"
"Grunkle Stan must have used the copy-majig… That's why he gave it back to you!" Mabel says.
"Devious old man…" Dipper mumbles through a smile, and his eyes are suspiciously shiny.
Mabel crosses her arms and grins at him. "Dipper, are you crying?"
He straightens up and fixes her with a superior look. "I'm not crying. Nobody is crying. I'm just very grateful to have information of such scientific import restored, as anyone would be."
Mabel knows that Grunkle Ford wanted to start over, to intentionally lose information about Bill (it had been Mabel who suggested the journals be tossed into the bottomless pit, as she once disposed of the Truth Telling Teeth there). But Grunkle Stan understands how important Journal 3 had been to Dipper if he pointed Soos to these copies. Besides, almost everything about Bill is still missing; Grunkle Stan made photocopies from the original, incomplete state that Journal 3 was in. And now Dipper has a better starting point for Journal A with his source notes restored!
"This calls for a celebration!" Mabel announces loudly. "Soos—Pitt me!"
"You got it, hambone." Soos tears through the plastic covering and plunks a can of soda into her waiting hand.
Mabel raises it as if it were a golden chalice. "To our bestest friend Soos, and our bestest day ever with him we're about to have!"
Dipper also raises a can. "To Soos!"
Soos joins in. "To me, Soos!"
They plunk their cans together and pop them open with a choir of hisses, drinking deep.
"Mmm! Hck-hck, geez," Dipper coughs, lowering his drink. "It's so bad, but it's so good."